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Another Walmart employee has quit over their association with a gay chamber of commerce, saying that it felt like "God hit me" when she saw a report on the matter. And let's just say she seems a bit...dramatic:
"The minute my husband made me aware of this, I started to just cry," she said. "It…

I was just glancing through the blog of Katheryn Schulz, author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, a book about people who were wrong about stuff, often big stuff (for example, she talks about individuals who spent decades in jail owing to false convictions). Meantime, I'm working…

A Christian game company has started a promotion for one of their games, and one gimmick is that they are offering a $10,000 prize to any atheist or agnostic who can replicate the unique literary style of the bible, which they purport is evidence of its divine origin.
Mankind has been debating the…

The other day I was having a conversation with a buddy of mine about politics. And of course, what mixes better with politics than religion? There was a mention of the stances of various presidential candidates with regards to homosexuality, and I said that in Leviticus it states that if a man lies…

Oh, the fun of religious dietary rules... Did you know that the Catholic Church ruled that the beaver is a fish (well, it lives in water) so that they were allowed to eat its meat on Fridays during Lent? Despite it's having neither fins nor scales...

CaptainMike: have you ever encountered "Preacher" by Garth Ennis? It's a set of graphic novels about that exact scenario. :)

I hate to be pedantic, but the Torah was written in Hebrew, not English. The homosexual act is described by the Hebrew word Toevah. The things that live in the water but which have neither fins nor scales are described as 'shekets' - verminous, loathsome. I'm not going to go into what the differing implications of the two words are, but to translate them both as 'abomination' is incorrect.

That said, I fully agree that the selective enforcement of Biblical commandments whose reason for existing is simply that they are in the Bible makes no sense. There are good extraBiblical reasons to prohibit murder. There aren't such for either opposing homosexuality or refraining from eating non-kosher animals.

OK, I've been waiting for a chance to ask all you cephalopodophiles, and this seems as good a time as ever: What are the odds of finding a sustainable, fishable population of giant squid? I've been having recurring dreams about fried calamari rings the size of hula-hoops, along with 5-gallon buckets of marinara sauce....

What's that skull you have pictured in your banner? It doesn't look like Homo sapiens at first glance. For instance, mandible is kinda big and has a missing double chin. Teeth are huge, the neurocranium isn't inflated enough for a H. sapiens and torus subraorbitalis is quite prominent. Os occipitalis is not as round as in us, either. I will venture a guess that you have a H. neanderthalensis? :>

Bill Dauphin - Giant squid are inedible due to the ammonia content of their flesh. I learned this from "The Search for the Giant Squid : The Biology and Mythology of the World's Most Elusive Sea Creature" by Richard Ellis. Excellent book, especially for a dumb-ass history major such as myself.

God also says that insects with wings are unclean. He is SUCH a bastard, hating on my elaterids. Although, I have to wonder if insects that lost their wings secondarily are now clean? Or are insects with only one pair of wings cleaner? Are larvae/nymphs that grow up to have wings also unclean?

I don't think shrimp have fins (in the sense that fish do) since they are arthropods. I just wish that terrestrial arthropods got as big as marine arthropods...sigh.

I've had locusts! The ones fried in garlic and butter were OK, but you mainly taste the garlic and butter; I've also had some that were salted and dried, and they had a pleasantly nutty flavor, even if they were a bit chewy. The only drawback was getting the legs caught between your teeth.

According to the version of Bible I was issued with in school, you're not supposed to eat ossifrages either [Deut 14.12]. Helpfully, there was a picture by the text of an ossifrage, in case you might eat one by mistake.

Another strange thing. In the Bible, it seems that insects go about "on all fours." This strikes me as a more gaping discrepancy than the interpretation that pi=3. How you could get close enough to a locust to eat one without noticing it has six legs?

If the whale's belly was big enough to hold Gepetto and Pinocchio at the same time, then why not Jonah? I admit it could get quite painful for the whale if Pinocchio started quoting his favorite passages from Dembski's work.

Come to think of it, isn't "manna from heaven" just insect poop? It might be like honeydew, which is simply aphids excreting the excess water they get from sucking plant juices. Anyway, I forget what it is exactly. But that means God is specifically providing his people with the poop from abominations for them to eat.

Obviously, anything touched by God is O.K. But also, to Jews, it is a greater sin to starve because of your dietary laws than to eat something unclean. Pride, perhaps. Not eating what's set before one. Or something.

P.S. I haven't talked to a lot of Jews about it, but the sample I've taken suggests that they don't think "Judeo-Christian" goes together any more than "Creation-Scientific".

Dendroica - griffin (Gyps fulvus) would make sense, so would lammergeier. The picture, as I recall it, was a kind of generic vulture thingy but resembled the Egyptian vulture (Neophron) more than anything. Also known as sh*te-hawks. Well, somebody must be eating them otherwise we'd be overrun.

some locusts are kosher
I think the reason behind law that is that if you have locusts around, you may not have many other foodstuffs left...

P.S. I haven't talked to a lot of Jews about it, but the sample I've taken suggests that they don't think "Judeo-Christian" goes together any more than "Creation-Scientific".
I've written a bit of a history of the term if anyone's interested. While it may have its uses, it's more often misused. I once read a letter to the editor that praised the Christian Coalition for its Judeo-Christian values, along with multiple other organizations -- all exclusively Christian, none remotely Jewish. That would be Christian values, then, wouldn't it?

I think god just didn't want us to eat dolphins. Because they're smart.

He probably told the dolphins not to eat humans, too. That's why they are so nice. They listened.

They probably are deeply religious and hang on his every word. That would explain their plastered-on phoney-baloney smile that never goes away - they've been saved. Kinda like Jehovah's Witnesses who come to your door.

Other creatures in the sea probably groan when they see two dolphins coming their way.

And once again the Jews get screwed. Linked to Old Testament prohibitions they don't get either shrimp scampi or fried squid (not to mention an oyster po'boy). But, when the christians came along they made sure that it was not a problem for them. In Mark 7 and Acts 10 and 11 forbidden food is cleansed for the followers (how convenient). Acts also seems to say that you can avoid that whole circumcision thing (can I get an amen?). But in Leviticus tattoos are forbidden and while Jesus cleaned the food he left the tats as forbidden. So, Jesus likes pork but hates Harley riders. What up wid dat?

For those of you with children (or those of us who watch Disney cartoons) perhaps you recall the forgettable Disney movie, "The Emporer's New Groove"?

There was a scene in a sort of diner where the main characters eat something that looks suspiciously like a 5 pound member of of the suborder Oniscidea. A huge Pillbug that is presumably steamed, then eaten with a straw.

I'm writing to tell you that you should mention The Brilliant Richard Dawkins, one of the smartest and most eloquent minds in this debate, and an author who has written a very smart answer to all the mindless theists in this world. And who, in his book: The 'God' Delusion, mentions you as a highly qualified source. I have been reading the book, with high-lighter in hand, and as Mr Dawkins says.......He has the proof that there absolutely is no damn "DOG", which I have been forwarding ever since I turned 16. I am now 62. Bless you, but remember we (Atheists) have a long road to travel. It's very hard to even break through to the mindless throngs who have been indoctrinated with the Bullshit "DOG" ever since they were old enough to wipe their own asses. Keep up the struggle. Nietzsche

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